The present invention relates to methods of operating vacuum processing equipment, which comprises wafer processing apparatus and wafer transport apparatus used in the processing of wafers and having at least two sets of processing units, and to methods of processing wafers using such vacuum processing equipment.
An example of conventional vacuum processing equipment is shown in, for example, Japanese Application Patent Laid-open Publication No. Sho 63-133532 (1988). In the disclosed equipment, when samples are processed under the normal operational status of a system having wafer processing chambers connected to a wafer transport chamber, independent wafers can be simultaneously processed using independent processing chambers, or wafers can be sequentially processed via two or more processing chambers, and wafers can be transported for these purposes.
Another example of conventional vacuum processing relates to the methods of operating the equipment as shown in Japanese Application Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei-274746 (1991). In the disclosed methods, simultaneous processing is carried out via two routes, wherein maintenance operations are performed on the processing chamber included in one route and the processing chamber in the other route is transiently shared for twin-route processing.
Japanese Application Patent Laid-open Publication No. Hei-67869 (1999) discloses still another example of operating methods relating to vacuum processing equipment that comprises multiple sets of processing apparatus, wherein a means for generating operational information signals indicating whether the corresponding processing apparatus is valid or invalid for operation is provided in each set of processing apparatus, and means is provided for storing its operational information signals into memory, along with an apparatus control means by which the operation of the equipment, based on memory-stored operational information signals, can be continued by activating only a valid processing apparatus, without using any invalid processing apparatus.
The abovementioned vacuum processing equipment shown in Japanese Application Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei-133532 (1988) and Japanese Application Patent Laid-open Publication No. Hei-274746 (1991), does not allow for the case wherein, for reasons such as trouble, either processing chamber cannot be used during the operation of the equipment using at least two processing chambers as processing routes, with the result that operation must be executed to implement continued processing with only normal processing chambers or the appropriate corrective actions must be taken to recover the equipment from such abnormality. Nor does the abovementioned equipment allow for the operating methods or procedures that are to be applied to preferentially execute interruption processing by first stopping temporarily the operation that uses at least two processing chambers as processing routes, and then using as processing routes the processing chambers that have not been used as processing routes up to that time, and to resume the temporarily stopped operation.
The operating methods disclosed in Japanese Application Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei-67869 (1999) relate to vacuum processing equipment that comprises multiple sets of apparatus for performing a succession of different processes on individual wafers, apparatus for transporting said wafers, and apparatus for controlling said processing apparatus sets and said control apparatus, has at least two sets of wafer processing routes including said processing apparatus sets, and processes wafers by performing said processes in parallel. These operating methods include the method of and/or the procedure for operating the equipment by using a normal set of processing chambers if any processing chambers exist that require repair prior to the start of operation. However, even if one set of processing chambers includes normal processing chambers, all processing chambers constituting the set are electrically disconnected.
For example, if processing chambers of the same type are connected in the above case, the availability of the equipment is low since no consideration is given to an operating method that enables operation to be continued using only normal processing chambers.
Neither the cleaning process for removing foreign matter from the processing equipment nor the aging process to be executed prior to wafer processing in order for the inside of the processing equipment to be set up for processing wafers is taken into account in terms of improvement in availability.